The moonlike Crystal Ball sat in the center of the table, its gentle light spilling over everyone's faces, brighter than candlelight.
Li Yang glanced down. The three people opposite him had no shadows. An eerie aura clung to them, and their skin had the bluish pallor of corpses.
But they were indeed players.
Wei Yanchi lay slumped over the table, gazing at the moon with lowered eyelids. No one knew what he was thinking.
The witch Juelu summed up their clues in a few words, her mismatched eyes fixed unblinkingly on Wei Yanchi. "I think you know quite a lot. Why not tell us so we can compare notes?"
"Don't stare at me."
Wei Yanchi listlessly raised his eyelids. Moonlight made his distinct black-and-white eyes look clear and bright, but his smile never reached them. "Ma'am, your beguilement doesn't work on me."
The witch said frankly, "You noticed? All right, sorry. So what clues have you found during this time?"
"Nothing different from what you already know."
Wei Yanchi said mildly, "The demon has been corrupting this region all along, from your War Era to the present. People live in fear. Perhaps you could tell us your objectives, and we could work backward from those."
"Our objective boils down to one thing: find the truth of history and make it public."
Orion spotted an ambiguity and asked, "The truth of what history? History is an enormous subject. Everything that happened in the past is history. Is the truth you're looking for about the war or the demon?"
Wei Yanchi looked at him and answered without hesitation. "The curse. Perhaps you can answer this question for me: where did the curse in the pile of corpses come from?"
Orion frowned. "What?"
A flicker of surprise crossed the witch's eyes.
"The curse